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What Did Hillary Think about McChrystal’s Firing?

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There’s a lot that’s interesting in this tick-tock of General McChrystal’s firing. It’s a finely crafted narrative, down to the foregrounding of Joe Biden, in spite of the way that the chronology appears to belie that narrative (that is, the chronology appears to start when the White House Press Office learns about the article). And note the way the normally cowardly anonymous source, Rahm Emanuel,  is on the record, as the story’s official narrator?

“He likes Stan and thinks Stan is a good man, a good general and a good soldier,” Mr. Emanuel said. “But as he said in his statement, this is bigger than any one person.”

But I’m most curious this paragraph:

On Tuesday, while General McChrystal was making the 14-hour flight to Washington, the White House was involved in a whirl of meetings about his fate. Along with Mr. Gates, aides say, four other senior officials were influential: Vice President Biden; the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; and Mr. Emanuel.

Compare this paragraph with the picture, above, of the Afghan strategy meeting held after Obama canned McChrystal, conveniently arranged  by protocol in proximity to the President: Joe Biden, James Jones, Bob Gates, Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, Rahm Emanuel, David Petraeus, Tom  Donilon, John Brennan (here’s the official description of the Pete Souza WH picture).

That is, if the decision were made according to seniority, then someone is missing from the list of five important decision-makers counseling Obama (which include Gates, Biden, Jones, Mullen, and Rahm): Hillary Clinton.

Rahm, the official narrator here, says Hillary wasn’t one of the five advisors most central to the decision to can McChrystal.

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Pakistani “Cooperation” on Faisal Shahzad

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Mark Hosenball has a post elaborating on something reported elsewhere–that the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) is only marginally involved in Faisal Shahzad’s interrogation. Given a point I tried to make here–namely, that one of the first things that happened after Shahzad’s arrest and seemingly in conjunction with him waiving a number of his rights, Pakistan detained at least one of his friends and his father-in-law (and potentially his father)–I’m particularly interested in how Hosenball describes Pakistan’s “cooperation” on this case.

Two of the officials also said that the HIG is playing little to no role in the questioning of multiple presumed associates of Shahzad who were detained by authorities in Pakistan following the failed Times Square attack. The main reason that HIG personnel are not more involved in questioning potential witnesses and suspects picked up in Pakistan, the officials said, is because Pakistani authorities have declined to invite HIG personnel into their country to participate in the interrogations.

[snip]

Another of the officials said that in any case, given the fact that Shahzad began cooperating with U.S. authorities literally minutes after Homeland Security officers took him off a flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Dubai on May 3, the need for ultrasophisticated interrogation expertise, like the kind of expertise HIG is supposed to offer, is not necessarily warranted in Shahzad’s case. As for witnesses or suspects picked up in Pakistan in connection with the Shahzad investigation, the official said, Pakistani authorities are doing most of the questioning themselves, though both Pakistani and U.S. officials say that the two governments are generously sharing information with each other.

Now, Hosenball places HIG’s non-involvement in the Pakistani interrogations (if that’s what they are) in this case within the context of earlier Pakistani disinterest in inviting HIG to the country. But look at a few of these details:

May 3, just before midnight: Shahzad arrested

May 4: US Ambassador Anne Patterson asks for Pakistani cooperation in case

May 5: Shahzad’s friend and father-in-law detained; police guard father’s house

May 6: Shahzad’s father in protective custody

May 7: In interview taped for May 9 60 Minutes, Hillary Clinton warns of “severe consequences … [if] an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful”

May 9: FBI seeks access to Shahzad’s father, retired Air Vice Marshall Baharul Haq

The appearance from this timeline is that, at a time when public reports said Shahzad was claiming, implausibly, that he acted alone, Pakistan rounded up Shahzad’s family members and a friend (though they appear to have described the detention of Shahzad’s father differently from how they described the detention of Shahzad’s father-in-law). Pakistan appears to have done this in response to a request from Ambassador Patterson. So Pakistan was certainly cooperative with the US, to the extent that it detained family members with no clear ties to the attempted attack.

Which is why the FBI request to have direct access to Shahzad’s father is so interesting–and Clinton’s oblique threat about ties between Pakistan and attacks like this. The appearance–and again, this is just appearances–is that the US is intent on getting access one way or another to Baharul Haq, regardless of whether or not HIG gets that access.

Mind you, there are no conclusions to draw from all this. But it seems that the issue with Pakistan may not just be a dislike of HIG.

Nixon The Obama Campaign Goes to China

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One of the most telling anecdotes in this must-read Edward Luce skewer of the way a small circle of Obama advisors (Rahm, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs) dominates his Administration is this story about his trip to China.

On Mr Obama’s November trip to China, members of the cabinet such as the Nobel prizewinning Stephen Chu, energy secretary, were left cooling their heels while Mr Gibbs, Mr Axelrod and Ms Jarrett were constantly at the president’s side.

The White House complained bitterly about what it saw as unfairly negative media coverage of a trip dubbed Mr Obama’s “G2” visit to China. But, as journalists were keenly aware, none of Mr Obama’s inner circle had any background in China. “We were about 40 vans down in the motorcade and got barely any time with the president,” says a senior official with extensive knowledge of the region. “It was like the Obama campaign was visiting China.”

Coming as it does in an article that compares Obama’s Administration to Nixon’s…

And barring Richard Nixon’s White House, few can think of an administration that has been so dominated by such a small inner circle.

The story really highlights the dangers of such a close-knit group dominating Administration policy: on a visit to China, our relationship with which is one of the most challenging policy issues we face, we’ve got tourists dominating the policy, not experts.

As much as I’m thrilled the story repeats calls to replace Rahm, I think the real story is the suggestion that Obama’s cabinet members are growing tired of being treated as “minions” by Rahm. The story names four by name: Kathleen Sebelius, Ken Salazar, Janet Napolitano, and (above) Steven Chu.

Perhaps the biggest losers are the cabinet members. Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Obama’s health secretary and formerly governor of Kansas, almost never appears on television and has been largely excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill. Others such as Ken Salazar, the interior secretary who is a former senator for Colorado, and Janet Napolitano, head of the Department for Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, have virtually disappeared from view.

Administration insiders say the famously irascible Mr Emanuel treats cabinet principals like minions. “I am not sure the president realises how much he is humiliating some of the big figures he spent so much trouble recruiting into his cabinet,” says the head of a presidential advisory board who visits the Oval Office frequently.

With the suggestion that Sebelius, for example, has been “excluded both from devising and selling the healthcare bill,” are we to understand that all of these cabinet officials are not intimately involved in setting policy? We’ve got Steven Chu, one of the best cabinet picks in the Administration, cooling his heels rather than the climate? And what are Sebelius, Salazar, and Napolitano advising that is not being heard? Is Sebelius growing tired of Rahm fucking up what should be her portfolio (after which, as happened last week, she has to go to Congress and get grilled on it)?

And then, of course, there’s an even more notable cabinet member that goes unmentioned: Hillary Clinton. She showed up prominently in the pictures from China, but she is not mentioned in this story as either one of those (like Joe Biden) who regularly gives Obama counsel but is not part of this inner circle, or one of those prominent cabinet members that Rahm treats like a minion. But the story does note how Arab-Israeli peace took a back seat to Rahm’s failed attempt to pass health care reform. Whether or not Hillary (or, more likely, her inner circle; John Podesta is one of the few named sources for it) is a source for this article, I can imagine how seeing a failed attempt to pass healthcare stall attempts to bring peace to Palestine would rankle Secretary Clinton.

So, yes, this is another story pointing to growing dissatisfaction with Rahm from allies both inside and outside the Administration. But note clearly, it appears to be very high level dissastisfaction.

Haynes’ Multiple Choice Memos

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Back in May, I wrote a post observing that when David Addington testified before the House Judiciary Committee, he seemed to be carefully choosing which August 1, 2002 Bybee Memo he answered questions about. For example, when Debbie Wasserman Schultz asks Addington whether he discussed torture methods described in the memo the Committee had been discussing (by context, the Bybee One memo), he response that that memo didn’t discuss torture methods.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. On any of the trips, did you discuss interrogation methods that were directly referenced in the memo that we have been discussing here for this hearing?

Mr. ADDINGTON. I am not sure I remember this memo having methods discussed in it, frankly. [my emphasis]

So he never answers a much more interesting question–whether he shared the Bybee Two memo–which did list torture methods–with those at Gitmo.

Curiously, Jim Haynes seems to be doing the same in the Questions for the Record following up on his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

36. Senator CLINTON. Mr. Haynes, do you recall when you received the August 1, 2002, OLC memorandum from Jay Bybee to Attorney General Gonzales regarding the legality of interrogation methods?

Mr. HAYNES. I do not recall precisely when I received a copy of the August 1, 2002 opinion interpreting 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340–2340A. Too much time has passed and I have now seen the memo in so many contexts that I can no longer be certain when I saw it for the first time. I cannot even recall whether I simply read the opinion al some point or whether I received a copy of the opinion and, if so, who transmitted the copy. I did, eventually, get a copy of that opinion, but I do not remember when I first got it.

From the context, Hillary may have referred to the Bybee One memo (the one equating torture with organ failure) using a description more apt for the Bybee Two memo (since the latter discussed the legality of interrogation methods).

But regardless of what Hillary meant to ask, Haynes crafts his answer to answer the question he wants to answer. She asks about the memo describing interrogation methods (which would be Bybee Two); he responds about the memo interpreting the statute (which would by Bybee One). 

Someone really ought to ask these thugs these same questions about the Bybee Two memo.

Three Auto State Senators “Said in a Statement”

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For an example of just how crappy the reporting on a potential auto bridge is, check out this NYT article. Its title announces "Republicans Divided on Aid to Automakers." Yet the part of the article that purportedly tells that story consists solely of statements of the four most invested Republican Senators on the issue.

Kit Bond (who co-sponsored past efforts with Carl Levin):

“I’m glad the Democratic leadership has embraced the principles of the Bond-Levin bill to hold auto companies accountable, protect taxpayers and save millions of American jobs as we head into the holiday season,” Mr. Bond said in a statement.

Bob Corker: 

“Based on the outline we’ve seen so far, we are disappointed,” Mr. Corker said in a statement. He reiterated his demands that the automakers make aggressive efforts to cut labor costs and reduce their overall debt obligations before receiving any aid.

“These are the same types of conditions a bankruptcy judge might require to ensure that these companies become viable and sustainable into the future,” Mr. Corker said. “And if they will agree to these terms, then we have something to talk about.”

Mitch McConnell:

“I look forward to reviewing the legislation being drafted to address the difficulties in our auto markets,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “As we consider this legislation, our first priority must be to protect the hard-earned money of the American taxpayer.”

And a gratuitous inclusion of Richard Shelby, though he apparently hasn’t issued any new statement, but somehow gets included, based on no apparently new reporting:

The senior Republican on the banking committee, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, has said he will oppose any taxpayer-financed bailout for the auto industry, and other fiscal hawks are likely to join him in opposing the measure.

This is what counts as reporting these days for the NYT. Three official statements probably gleaned from press releases, thereby letting those most invested in this debate stand in for those who will determine its outcome.

In spite of the fact that every single Republican listed (along with Carl Levin) is an auto state Senator of one sort or another, David Herszenhorn doesn’t apparently consider that information to be noteworthy (indeed, he attributes Shelby’s opposition to any bailout to fiscal conservatism, not anti-union ideology and home state self-interest). Read more →

Soft Power

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In the comments to this thread, we discussed the possibility that Obama would execute a long overdue shift in emphasis in our foreign policy, emphasizing the State Department and soft power over DOD and military power (and, even, soft power implmented by the military). See, especially, this nadezhda comment.

That appears to be the plan:

Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.

The shift would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states. However, it is unclear whether the financing would be shifted from the Pentagon; Mr. Obama has also committed to increasing the number of American combat troops. Whether they can make the change — one that Mr. Obama started talking about in the summer of 2007, when his candidacy was a long shot at best — “will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,” one of his senior advisers said recently.

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the three have all embraced “a rebalancing of America’s national security portfolio” after a huge investment in new combat capabilities during the Bush years.

The article points out many of the hurdles Obama will face in implementing this plan. There’s DOD’s insatiable appetite for money–the same money that would need to be switched to State. And there’s the right wing suspicion of any kind of foreign policy that doesn’t give them a hard-on.

Of course, those hurdles may be easier to overcome given the team Obama is announcing today, partly because Gates will give Obama cover for "gutting" Defense, Hillary will be adamant about increasing her portfolio, and Jones will have the chops to knock any skeptics in the military back in place.

Let’s hope they succeed.

James Jones versus Hillary in the Middle East

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I pointed out the other day that those worried about Obama’s foreign policy plans ought to be more focused on his National Security Advisor, reported to be retired Marine General James Jones, than Hillary at State.

And there are reasons to be concerned about Jones. For example, Jones currently leads a US Chamber of Commerce initiative to forge an energy consensus that espouses some questionable views (though I am thrilled about an NSA who has been focusing on energy in recent years).

Eli Lake offers a different view, focusing on Jones’ possible tension with Hillary as it relates to Middle East peace. Lake argues that Jones will be much more accommodating of (moderate) Palestinian views in any negotiations than Hillary.

Last November, Condoleezza Rice appointed [Jones] as her special envoy for Middle East security, with a particular emphasis on working with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian security services. Last August, he drafted a report on security in the Palestinian territories that is said to have been highly critical of Israel’s policies in the territories and its attitude toward the Palestinian Authority’s security services. The White House and State Department opted not to publish the report.

In August, Israel’s leading newspaper, Ha’aretz, reported that the draft report challenged Israel’s conception of its security interests in the West Bank as being overly broad, and that the IDF in particular was too dismissive of the Palestinian security services. 

[snip]

In his interview with Inside the Pentagon, Jones said that the Palestinians should be granted increasing degrees of local sovereignty over the West Bank until an independent state is born–with an emphasis on giving the Palestinians experience with governance. On Sunday, Ha’aretz reported that Jones favors dispatching a NATO force to keep the peace in the interim. That’s a plan that the Israeli government would likely fiercely resist on the grounds that the Jewish state’s defense doctrine has always spurned the presence of foreign troops on its territory and that it could be a reprise of the disasters of the U.N. mission to Lebanon.

Now, consider his potential nemesis, Hillary Clinton. It is true that there is some doubt about where she ultimately lands on the Israel-Palestine question–confusion that followed her famous hug with Suha Arafat. Read more →

About that Hillary as Secretary of State Thing

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Say. Did you notice how successful Colin Powell was at pushing the Bush Administration to adopt his less-horrible foreign policy solutions, like peace in Israel and a government in Iraq that included all factions?

Oh wait. I remember now. In spite of his national stature, in spite of the skills learned in a career of negotiating the bureaucracy and politics of the military, he was profoundly unsuccessful at influencing the direction of policy in the Administration.

There’s something missing from the discussions about whether Obama will indeed name Hillary his Secretary of State: a discussion of how that position has become much weaker in the last half century, as compared to the National Security Advisor or the Defense Secretary. Here’s the closest we get to an acknowledgment of this issue.

Friends said the potential loss of her independence, hard won by her election to the Senate from New York in 2000, caused Clinton to waver last week as she considered Obama’s offer. But advisers said the discussions got back on track after he promised she would have considerable input on staffing decisions and plenty of access to him. 

[snip]

Indeed, perhaps as a counterweight to the Clinton pick, Obama is likely to name James L. Jones, a widely respected former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, to be his national security adviser. Jones would lend a powerful voice on foreign policy matters right in the White House, while Clinton was at the State Department or overseas. 

National Security Advisor

The Secretary of State has lost power for two different reasons. The National Security Advisor has had proximity and–increasingly–operational means. As the person who convenes the National Security Council, the NSA has some ability to guide the agenda. She also would help the President balance the competing views of the other members of the NSC, so would have more sway over final decision-making. And, as the staff of the NSC at the White House grows, the NSA increasingly has the ability to implement presidential foreign policy plans directly, without the cooperation of the State Department (the best example of this was Iran-Contra, in which Ronnie and Poppy implemented entire foreign policy programs through NSC). 

While Condi was a disaster at this role and Hadley only slightly better, that role of internal foreign policy advisor was basically taken over by Cheney in this White House–but there, too, the lesson of an internal force setting policy–including much of the war on terror–remains valid. Read more →

BREAKING!!! Hillary to Deliver Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

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In yet another piece of evidence that Barack Obama will change how things are done in Washington, it appears that Obama will ask his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination to deliver the inaugural address in January.

So says the NYT, in a story scoping out what color drapes Michelle has planned for the family quarters at the White House.

His transition chief has even drafted a sample Inaugural Address.

[snip]

Mr. Obama’s transition team is led by a former White House chief of staff, John D. Podesta, who has been preparing for the task at the research organization he runs, the Center for American Progress, since long before it was clear who would win his party’s nomination.

[snip]

Mr. Podesta has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called “The Power of Progress.” The speech calls for rebuilding a “grand alliance” with the rest of the world, bringing troops home from Iraq, recommitting to the war in Afghanistan, cutting poverty in half in 10 years and reducing greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.

The Grey Lady must have meant to imply that Hillary will deliver this address for Obama, since Podesta wrote that speech back when he was working to elect Hillary president. 

It’s a great idea, too, for Obama to have one of his biggest rivals to deliver his inauguration speech. After all, Obama is known for writing dull, uninspiring speeches; he can’t deliver them very well, either.  Thankfully, Podesta will save us from this kind of history-making speech and allow us all to get back to watching football. Or organizing our sock drawers–whatever it was we were doing before we started fighting to get our country back. 

In other news, Obama will appoint John McCain his Secretary of Treasury and Randy Scheunemann his Secretary of State.

A Recap of the RBC Meeting

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I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I thought it worthwhile to post a recap of the RBC meeting yesterday.

First, the outcome: The Committee decided FL and MI will be seated–with both elected and super delegates seated at half strength. The FL delegation will be based entirely on the results of their January primary. And the MI delegation will be based on what the MDP thought would be the best approximation of a fair reflection of the will of the voters–which works out to be a 69-59 split (though each delegate votes at half strength).

A review of the importance of "fair reflection" may help folks understand why the RBC chose to accept a seemingly arbitrary number from MI.

Article Two Section 4 of the Democratic Party Charter requires that delegations to the National Convention "fairly reflect the division of preferences expressed by those who participate in the Presidential nominating process." That means you’ve got to make sure the delegates to the Convention actually match what people who "participate in the Presidential nominating process" want. This is a concept that Hillary’s top advisor, Harold Ickes, emphasized when he argued that MI’s delegation should be based on our January 15 Clusterfuck–he said repeatedly that this principle was as fundamental a principle as the First Amendment. And basically, Ickes’ arguments were all premised on his judgment that the Clusterfuck was a meaningful measure of the preferences for President.

But it was on the basis of this "fair representation" concept that the MI presenters, Mark Brewer and Carl Levin, made their ultimately successful arguments. Brewer (who is a big numbers geek) basically looked at several reasons why the Clusterfuck could not be considered a "fair representation:" because Obama’s and Edwards’ names weren’t on the ballot, because an exit poll showed that Hillary and Obama would have taken something like 45% and 35% of the vote (the results of the Clusterfuck were 55% Hillary, 40% uncommitted), and the high number of write-ins that were thrown out that reflected a desire to vote for Obama or Edwards. In other words, Brewer threw out a load of data that proved that the Clusterfuck did not measure a "fair reflection" of the preferences of those who participated in the Clusterfuck. And given the results, this argument must have been persuasive to the RBC committee.

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